


Five Conversations About One Thing

by rabidchild67



Category: Actor RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Anal Play, Chris is a doofus, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Prostate Massage, Sex Toys, That Reddit Prostate Guy, Zach is clueless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:12:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1775368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Butt sex. The thing is butt sex. </p><p>Fill written for this Pinto Kink Meme prompt:<br/>http://pintokinkmeme.livejournal.com/925.html?thread=7581#t7581</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Conversations About One Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I have been meaning to write a fic inspired by this Reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/17c8oa/i_23m_just_discovered_prostate_stimulation_and_i and then someone prompted it on the new Pinto Kink Meme, and that enough for me. 
> 
> And we’ll just hand-wave the fact that Zach was living in New York for much of this timeline, hmm?

**August, 2010**

Zach jumped a little when his phone buzzed in his pocket – the vibrate setting on his new iPhone was a lot more enthusiastic than the last one. He sent two fingers into the tightness that was the front left pocket of his skinny jeans to retrieve it, frowning at the screen when he saw who it was. “Pine, I thought we were meeting tomorrow – don’t tell me you’re cancelling? Do you know what it took to get _everyone_ together for your birthday? Simon’s flying in just for you.”

“No, I’m not canceling. I’m not.” Chris’s voice trailed off, like he’d run out of energy or breath or something.

“Something’s wrong,” Zach said with the kind of certainty only someone used to getting bad news – like every single actor – could have. 

“I went to the doctor last week…”

“Oh my God,” Zach interrupted, his body suddenly feeling ten degrees too hot. “Ohmygod, what’s wrong with you? You can tell me – you know I’ll be there, man. Anything you want – anything you need.”

“What? No, Zach, it’s not like that. I went to the doctor for a physical – it was kind of required for the new movie, and I was turning 30, so it had to happen, right?” He sighed. “Anyway, the examination was a bit more… complete than expected.”

“What do you mean?”

“The doc, he um… he did a prostate exam?”

“Oh. Really? At your age?”

“That’s what I said, but there’s a history of prostate cancer on my dad’s side of the family, so it was better to be safe than sorry, so whatever.”

“OK, so… is something wrong? Because you just said…”

“I liked it.”

“What?”

“I liked it, Zach – I 100% liked it.”

“You liked a doctor’s finger in your ass?”

There was a pause. A long pause. “Yes.”

“Jesus Christ, Pine, only you. What actually happened?”

Zach could practically hear Chris’s face turning as red as a beet. “I dunno, he stuck his finger in there,” Chris mumbled, “and like _pressed on things_ and like, I got as hard as a fucking drill bit, man.”

Zach laughed out loud. “Really?”

“Really, and like, _stuff_ came out – like jizz - only not? And it felt good, man, _really good_.”

“In the doctor’s office?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you tipped him well. Who knew a physical came with a happy ending these days – clearly I need to change insurance providers.”

“Shut the fuck up, man!” Chris exclaimed, but at least he was laughing, and it lifted the strange vibe Zach was beginning to get. 

“Fine. So what’d the doc say?”

“He said it was normal, only he said it in a way that meant it totally was not.”

Zach twisted his phone around so that the mouthpiece was behind his ear – he did not want Chris to hear him still laughing. Chris naturally filled the ensuing silence.

“So then I went home to try to do it to, like, myself.”

 _Holy shit, now this really was getting good._ Zach twisted the phone right back to his mouth. “Um, yes?”

“I couldn’t get the angle right or something.” 

Zach made mm-hmming noises, like he wanted to be encouraging; he secretly wished he was recording this.

“So I went to the music store and bought a pair of drumsticks.”

“WHAT?!”

Chris went on as if Zach hadn’t just shouted down the phone, “And oh, man… I have never come like that in my entire life. I mean, I saw stars. I think I saw God, even. Yeah, probably definitely. And Zach, dude, it was better than anything. Ever. Better than sex with a girl. Better than a blow job.”

“Mazel tov?”

“Shut up – I’m telling you I came without even touching my dick!”

“What do you want me to say here, Chris? Congratulations, you’re into ass play?”

“No,” he replied, suddenly defensive.

“Well then what?”

There was a silence at the other end of the phone. “I went down to a sex store and bought a butt plug.”

 _Oh sweet baby Jesus,_ Zach thought. “And?”

“And it isn’t really that good, you know? It’s like a brick in my ass.”

Zach pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know what you want me to say or do here.”

“I guess I just want your help and advice. You know? Because you’re gay?”

“I do not know. Not all gay men have anal sex. Not all gay men bottom.”

“Oh. You don’t?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I don’t. Not since I tried it once when I was 17.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

“I’m not – I was hoping for pointers, actually.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

There was a long pause.

“Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you call to tell me about this?”

“I was… kind of… hoping…”

“Aw, hell no! No.”

“You didn't give me a chance to ask!”

“I am giving you a chance not to ask, Christopher. Because if you do, I will then be compelled to punch you in the face, and that is a face I very much do not want to damage.”

“Well, why not? Can’t you just help out a friend?”

“I do not believe this falls under the friendship code, Christopher, not even a little. Ask me to take you to the airport – that I will do. Or dog sit – not that you have a dog, but you know what I mean. Hell, I’ll even help you move if you want, but this is beyond the beyond.”

“Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to, like, insult you or anything. It’s just, well, if this means I’m gay, then I’d like to be with someone I like and respect.”

“You make it sound like I’m your consolation prize,” Zach said, suddenly feeling sullen.

“You know that’s not that. It’s not what I mean at all – it’s just not coming out right, Zach.”

Zach would have rolled his eyes if Chris didn't sound legitimately sincere. After a long pause, he finally said,“It doesn’t mean you’re gay, Chris. It just means you like it in the ass. The two are not the same thing.”

Zach wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but Chris actually sounded disappointed when he replied, “Oh. OK.”

\----

 **October, 2010**

Zach waited in his car in the white zone, checking his watch. He nodded at the security guy who walked past, watched as he shooed away another car that had been parked in front of Zach. Turned out the guy was a huge Trek fan – celebrity had its privileges. Zach rarely took advantage of them, but in matters of getting out of jury duty and picking friends up from the airport, he was happy to be obliged.

It seemed like ages ago that Chris had called to say his flight from Hong Kong had landed – surely getting through customs shouldn’t take _this_ long, and Zach had even stopped by Chris’s favorite coffee place to waste a little time. At long last, a shadow passed over Zach’s windshield, and there was Pine, walking quickly around to the trunk of the car to stow his bags. 

Zach got out of the car to go and greet him, arm half-raised for the hand-grasp-shoulder-bump of bro-ness when the look on Chris’s face stopped him in his tracks. 

“Who pissed in _your_ Cheerios?” Zach asked.

“Customs,” Chris responded darkly.

“What – you weren’t trying to smuggle in any exotic animals, were you?” Zach joked. “Were you?” he asked, when the look on Chris’s face darkened.

Chris blinked at him as if seeing him for the first time. “What? No! No, they were giving me the third degree about not claiming some stuff I bought and made me pay a huge fine, and they still won’t let it through customs. Can we just go?” 

He stalked over to the passenger side of the car and got in. Zach closed the trunk and then got into the car, where Chris was eyeing the iced coffee Zach had gotten him. “All the ice probably melted,” Zach told him. “I thought you’d be out of there like half an hour ago.”

Chris picked it up and drank anyway. “Thanks, man, I need this.” He drank half of it in one go then set it back in the cup holder, sinking moodily down in his seat. 

Zach started the car and eased out into the traffic lane, following the signs for the I-10. “You want to talk about it?” he finally asked after the silence had stretched on for way too long.

“No.”

But then: “Yes. So Hardy told me about this sex shop when we were out one night.”

“Um…”

“So I went and like, I picked up a few things.”

“How many… things?”

“I dunno, maybe a grand’s worth?”

“You bought a thousand dollars worth of sex toys in Hong Kong? 

“Well, some of the ones with motors are kind of expensive.”

“Motors. Like. Motor-motors?”

Chris gave him a look like he was simple.

“Jesus, Pine – how many horses we talking here?”

“I dunno – it was all in Mandarin or whatever. They demoed ‘em for me first, I wasn’t gonna just buy them sight unseen.”

“Well I’m glad to hear you’re a well-informed consumer,” Zach said dryly.

“Don’t look at me like that – I didn't try them out personally. They just let me turn them on and stuff.”

“The motorized sex toys that you expect to stick in your ass?”

“Well, I need something, Zach, cuz dildos just aren’t cutting it.”

“Can’t you get one of your publicist-approved girlfriends to help you out?”

“Regular sex just isn’t the same, man. I… I’m ruined for it. I just… pussy’s doing nothing for me, man.”

“You’re saying you can’t get it up for women now?”

“No! I’m not saying anything like that. It’s just that it’s not as good as… as the other thing.”

He sounded genuinely bummed out. 

 

 **November 2010**

“OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?”

Zach’s hands flew out to touch Chris, but he pulled them back immediately, using them to cover his mouth in shock instead.

“Is it bad?”

“Should you go to a doctor?”

“It’s bad,” Chris said, dejected. “I’ve got to shoot pick-ups for the movie in two weeks, god damn it.”

Zach moved out of the way so he could come into the apartment, and closed the door behind him. He took him by the arm to lead him inside, but Chris flinched away from him with a pained noise. “Sorry, sorry. Come on.” He headed for the kitchen, looking back over his shoulder often, as if Chris would disappear or something. 

When they reached the kitchen, Zach pulled out a stool by the breakfast bar and made Chris sit, then went to fetch the first aid kit. It was 2:00 in the morning, and less than five minutes before, he’d been awakened from a sound sleep by a frantic knocking at his door. He rose to find a battered and bedraggled Chris on his doorstep – it had been raining – with an already swelling eye and, apparently, some kind of bruising on his upper left arm.

“What happened?” Zach asked, keeping his voice as gentle as possible; he draped a throw blanket around Chris’s shivering shoulders and set the first aid kit on the kitchen island. 

“I, uh, I started a fight,” Chris said, not able to meet Zach’s eyes.

“You got into a fight? You?” Chris was perhaps the gentlest, most easy-going person Zach had ever met, and he couldn’t conceive of him doing any violence.

“No, I _started_ it.”

Zach let his confusion show as he moved over to the refrigerator to get some ice. “You’re going to have to explain.” He began to fill a Ziploc bag with cubes.

“This is really embarrassing,” Chris mush-mouthed.

“You woke me up at 2:00 in the morning, you owe me,” Zach said, his tone much gentler than his words. He pressed the ice to Chris’s eye, which seemed to be swelling shut at an alarming rate. 

Chris winced and took a deep breath. “I was meeting a guy.”

“What kind of guy?”

“The kind that goes to that gay biker bar on Sepulveda?”

“The Busted Nut – are you crazy? No one goes there who’s not looking to score drugs or is already _on_ drugs.” Zach shuddered – the place was infamous for anyone looking for some rough trade – _really_ rough trade. Stories of what happened there were the stuff of horrifying legend; rumor had it that years ago someone had disappeared only to turn up as a victim of a serial killer.“What the hell were you thinking?” 

Chris shrugged. “I didn’t know what kind of place it was – I met this guy online and he wanted to go there. I figured meeting him in a bar couldn’t hurt – it’s a public place.”

Zach gave Chris a long look. “Why were you meeting him there?” 

Chris’s one good eye traveled north of Zach’s head and settled on the ceiling fan. 

“You were going to try to hook up with him?”

Chris shrugged, eye still fixed on the fan. “What? You know I’ve been wanting to have sex with a guy.”

“So what – the Anal Invader’s just not doing it for you anymore?”

Despite everything, Chris managed to look perfectly dignified in that moment. “If you must know, it is not.”

Zach tried to speak from a place of calm and patience. “So what happened? What went wrong?”

“Well, I met the guy and he was… well, he was big. Like The Rock big. He said he was a personal trainer and worked construction. We had a drink together – he seemed nice enough. Then he had to go to the bathroom, so I went to order another round of beers from the bar, and this other guy came over, started talking shit about The Rock, like how he couldn’t give it to me the way he could or something. I tried to let him know I wasn’t interested – he really was kinda scary, you know – and ugly too. That’s when The Rock came back from the bathroom.”

“Oh boy,” Zach said.

“Yeah. So then there was a lot of shouting and before you know it, Ugly Guy is throwing big, meaty ham-fists around, which The Rock had the presence of mind to duck to miss, but I did not.”

“Ouch.”

“Exactly. So I’m on the floor, and The Rock is, I dunno, defending my honor or whatever, so he hauls off and punches the other guy. They get into it, and they’re tussling back and forth, knocking into drunk guys who are not exactly thrilled to be spilling their boilermakers all over themselves. I realize what’s going on and I know I’ve got to get out of there, but now there are about half a dozen 300-pound guys wailing on each other, including my, uh, date, I guess you’d call him. That’s when it really got ugly.”

“It gets worse?”

Chris nodded. “There were pool cues. I think one of them hit me in the head when I tried to get up. Then one of the bouncers pulled me out of there.” That explained the bruised arm. Chris winced and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, I think one of those pool cues caught me in the head – ouch.”

“Don’t touch it – let me see,” Zach said, making Chris turn his head to the side so he could look. He gently pushed the blond hair aside with his fingers and sure enough, there was a lump on the back of Chris’s head the size of a walnut. He made a kind of distressed noise in the back of his throat and Chris looked at him. “You didn't black out or anything, did you?”

“No – I’m positive I did not.”

“Well that’s something.” He took Chris’s hand and made him hold the ice pack up to his eye. “I’ll get you more ice.” He returned a moment later with another filled Ziploc, which he held to the back of Chris’s head. Standing here, so close to Chris, he got a real sense of how vulnerable he was, how much he had risked tonight just because he wanted to be with a man. 

“Just how stupid are you, anyway?” he asked gently.

“Hella. Apparently. Ow.” This last word he whispered when Zach’s hand shifted at the back of his head.

Zach stared into his face, his dopey, earnest, open face with the big blue eye and the other blue eye that was now obscured by an ice pack and those spit-slicked, kissable lips that Zach really, really thought he had gotten over fantasizing about, and he did what any red-blooded American gay would do: he caved.

“OK fine, I’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“Do you.”

“Really?” And then Chris smiled. Like fucking _beamed_.

Zach was going to live to regret this.

\----

“Hey, I wanna, you know, thank you for this. For like… for being my first time and all.”

Zach couldn’t have said what was getting to him more, Chris’s guilelessness or the fact he was wearing those damnably thick glasses that magnified his eyes _just so_ and made him look like nothing more than the world’s most sincere owl.

“You’re a really good friend and I… I appreciate it, Zach. So…” Chris took a deep breath and held it, his lips stretching around the air in his cheeks. 

“Maybe you should take those off?” Zach asked, touching the frames lightly. 

“Sure. Sure thing.” He pulled them off and closed them up, holding them in both hands as he pivoted at the waist to deposit them on the nightstand. When he looked back at Zach, it was with the diffuse focus of the terribly nearsighted and, if possible, it made him even more appealing.

“How do you want me?” 

Talk about loaded questions. Zach closed his eyes and just breathed through his nose for a few moments. “On your back?”

“OK, sure. Whatever’s easiest.” Chris shimmied back toward the head of the bed, settling his shoulders down on the pillows. He was already naked – they both were – and Zach felt a stab of longing as he watched Chris’s biceps bunch and relax as he maneuvered himself. 

“I want you to know that I, um, I prepared. I mean, I used a douche or whatever. Earlier. A couple actually. Because I wouldn’t wanna, like… make a mess.”

“Wow, that’s, um, thoughtful.”

“I brought some lube and condoms too – they’re in my messenger bag over there. I didn't want to be presumptuous or anything. I mean, not that you don’t also have those things, because obviously, I mean, you’re probably using those things all the time. Or not. I mean, I’m not judging you if you do or you don’t, man, I just, you know… my mom always says to plan for the worst and hope for the best and I’m not sure whether that really applies here except that it _does_ mean that I’m kind of an over-planner, in case you’ve never noticed before and wow, I should shut up now, huh?”

Chris had a full-body blush going by now that was entirely too attractive and Zach couldn’t help but smile at him. “Don’t worry, I have all the necessary supplies.” As if to demonstrate, he pulled them all from the drawer in the nightstand and waggled them around.

“Cool,” Chris said with another smile that fortunately went straight to Zach’s dick, which despite all the nakedness, had until this moment taken a bye on the proceedings and lain like a lox in Zach’s lap. 

“Should we get started?” 

Chris nodded. 

“OK then, lie back and relax.” Zach stretched out on his side next to Chris, propped up on an elbow, and laid a tentative hand on his thigh. “Spread your legs open?” Chris obliged and Zach took up the lube, squirting a bit onto his fingers and reaching down. “I know you’re used to… you know… stuff in your butt, but I still want to prep you, is that OK? It’s kind of part of the enjoyment for me.”

Chris nodded enthusiastically, and Zach reached down between his legs. But before he touched Chris, he blurted, “Oh one more thing – I don’t think we should kiss or anything. It makes it too personal, you know what I mean?”

“OK, sure. I understand completely,” Chris replied, nodding, but Zach couldn’t shake the sense that he looked slightly disappointed. Or that might have been the nearsightedness.

Zach resumed moving his hand between Chris’s legs. He couldn’t really see much down there from this angle – because damn: Chris’s balls were huge – but when he touched Chris’s hole with the pad of his middle finger, the flesh quivered slightly, pulling away and settling back, as if delivering a chaste kiss. He pressed gently until his entire fingertip was inside. He could feel a gentle quivering as he pressed in further. “Just relax,” he urged. 

Chris nodded.

“And breathe.”

The breath Chris let out wasn’t explosive, but it wasn’t a soft sigh either. Zach chuckled as he worked his middle finger all the way in. A moment later, Chris jumped suddenly. 

“Oh! Hey now! Whoa.”

“Was that – did I just hit your sweet spot?” Zach asked.

Chris nodded. 

“Wow, you _are_ sensitive.” _And fucking HUGE_. With the prostate stimulation, Chris’s dick had gone completely hard; he was easily ten inches. Zach felt his mouth begin to water. 

“Your fingers are, like, super-long. Jesus fuck!” Chris gasped as Zach hit the spot again accidentally on purpose. “You keep that up and I’ll shoot right now.”

“Understood.” Zach spent the next couple of minutes stretching Chris’s hole instead, eventually able to get three fingers in to the second knuckle. “How’s that feel?” 

“It burns. I – I like it though.” 

Zach removed a finger and pressed more of the other two inside, scissoring them, giving Chris a chance to adjust.

“Is your dick gonna be bigger than that?”

Zach glanced at his still at-half-mast cock then back at Chris. “I’m a grower not a shower, Pine, give it a chance.”

“That’s not what I… I just want to know what to expect is all. But like, if you want some help I could maybe blow you a little.”

“ _You_ have sucked a dick?” 

“Kind of. Mostly.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I practiced on one of my dildos.”

“What, in case it came up?” 

“Did I mention I over-plan? Oh! Oh! Oh myyy!” 

Zach had picked up the pace, thrusting his fingers in and out. Chris’s hips lifted, following along with Zach’s hand. Zach stopped let Chris fuck himself on his fingers.

“Guuuuhhh,” Zach rather eloquently said as his own cock was suddenly as hard as nails.

“God, can we do this?” Chris breathed at his shoulder, and Zach grunted something that was supposed to be a yes as he moved to the foot of the bed and knelt between Chris’s legs.

Fumbling with a condom wrapper with lube-slicked fingers was not something they ever showed in pornos, Zach was certain. Chris was practically vibrating with impatience by the time Zach got the thing rolled on. 

“Ready?”

Chris nodded a bit too emphatically.

Zach reached out and grabbed Chris’s hips, pulling him down the bed so that he was lying flat on his back. Spreading his legs open for him, Zach looked down at him; Chris’s blue eyes were wide, pupils enlarged with arousal, blond hair sticking up all over the place, and his skin was flushed. In a word: beautiful. “Fuck me,” Zach said slowly, under his breath.

“Hmm?”

“Legs on my shoulders or bent back?” he asked as he lubed himself up.

“I don’t know… what’s usually better?”

“Depends on the person. Why don’t we try it with your legs on my shoulders first?”

“OK.”

Zach hoisted Chris’s legs up and over. “Man, you’ve got some gnarly toes, Pine.”

“Fuck you!”

“On the contrary, fuck _you_ ”

“You’ve been waiting all day to say that, haven’t you?” Chris laughed.

Truthfully, no, but Zach would take it. He lined his dick up with Chris’s hole, pressing the head in past the initial resistance. This was always the best part, to him, the intensity of a new breach, the nearly-unbearable tightness, the heat. It felt like heaven, it felt like hell. He took a moment to savor it. He forgot to breathe.

“Zach?”

“Sorry.” He pressed forward slowly; he could feel Chris bearing down, easing the way. It felt strange to Zach – here he was, taking his friend’s virginity, but Chris had clearly had plenty of experience with anal play by now, even if it hadn’t been with an actual person. He shook his head – some things were best left alone.

Zach looked down when he felt his balls touching the peach fuzz Pine had for hair on his ass. “How’s that feel?” he asked.

“Good. Full. _Very_ full.”

Zach smirked and began to pull out.

“Ah, OK, OK,” Chris began to mutter, and Zach saw him wince.

“Something wrong? More lube, maybe?”

“Yeah, I think so. Yeah.”

Zach grabbed for the lube and slicked himself as well as Chris’s hole once he’d pulled all the way out, then began to press back in. “Better?”

“Mmm.”

Zach stayed where he was as Chris seemed to adjust; the urge to thrust was nearly driving him insane, but he held off.

“Breathe, Pine.”

“OK.”

Zach made a few experimental, shallow thrusts. “How’s that?”

“It’s good but…” Chris wasn’t looking at him.

“Not feeling it?”

“Not the way I thought.”

“That’s OK – the angle’s probably wrong. Let’s try something else.”

Zach pulled out slowly and realigned Chris’s legs, pressing his knees back toward his shoulders as far as they would go, his ass lifting up and off the bed. When Zach slid inside this time, there was less drag and Chris seemed more relaxed about it.

“Better?”

Chris nodded. “Is this why you do yoga?”

“You’re damn right.”

Zach began to thrust, though the angle for him was a bit odd. “Hang on, let me just…” Zach moved closer, which resulted in Chris rolling back further, with more of his weight pressing on his shoulders and his ass at a higher angle. This, apparently, was where they hit paydirt. When Zach thrust forward, Chris gasped so loudly Zach was momentarily alarmed.

“Something wrong?”

Chris was holding his breath, his eyes wide and rolling back in his head.

“That OK? Chris?”

Chris didn't move, but his mouth opened in a wide O.

“Use your words, Pine.”

“That’s it,” he managed around the fact he was not breathing.

“Really?”

Chris nodded.

Zach pulled out nearly completely and then thrust in again, and Chris’s entire body shuddered. Again, and Chris clutched at the sheets. Again, and a stream of pre-cum, crystal clear and viscous, poured out of him in a quantity Zach had never before seen on any man. He judged this as a Very Good Thing and grinned, stupidly proud of himself.

“You want more?”

Chris could only manage a nod. Zach leaned forward, catching the backs of Chris’s knees with his forearms to anchor them. Rocking Chris even further back on his shoulders, he rested his hands on either side of him and lifted his own knees off the bed, fucking down into Chris, hard. Zach’s arms trembled as he kept all of his weight on them in what had to be the world’s most erotic push-up. 

“Zach, Zach,” Chris was saying – how had Zach missed that he was talking? Zach could barely hear from the blood pounding in his ears. 

“Zach,” Chris repeated. It was a murmur, a whisper.

“Zach.” 

Chris’s face was turned away, his mouth opened, but no more sound came out. And then he came. Hard. Zach was vaguely aware of something hot hitting the bottom of his chin. He knew what it was from the smell more than anything, a smell deep and musky and familiar. And, like one of Pavlov’s dogs – the really pervy ones – Zach couldn’t have controlled his own reaction if he tried. He came himself, long and hard and with a shout of something; he wasn’t sure what he said, but he hoped it wasn’t anything embarrassing like “Mommy.”

When he came back to himself, he was lying on top of Chris, panting for breath, his dick rapidly softening. He pushed himself up on shaking arms and pulled gently out of Chris, who flinched from the over-stimulation. 

“Sorry,” Zach breathed.

“It’s OK,” Chris said, looking at Zach. “It’s OK.” He reached up and ran his fingers over Zach’s jaw, a smile so serene and beatific on his face, Zach had nothing to compare it to. No actually, he did – it was the expression he’d seen on the faces of those martyrs the nuns used to show him pictures of when he was in second grade, the ones being tortured to death who looked like they’d just seen the face of God. Tormented and euphoric.

Zach’s heart swelled to see that expression – to have anyone aim it at him was almost too good to be true. And he knew, he knew with all his heart what it meant.

They were never, _ever_ going to do this again. 

 

 **Three months later**

_BING-BONG_

Zach stood in his kitchen with two cookie sheets in his hands, poised to place them in the oven, when the doorbell rang. What could he say – he was a stress-baker, and nothing stressed him out more than waiting to hear about an audition. He looked at the open oven door, then the front door, then the oven, then rolled his eyes. Placing the pans on top of the stove and kicking the oven closed – Nonna Quinto’s famous pistachio biscotti would not be rushed – he strode through his apartment to answer the door. 

He paused in front of it, suddenly terrified that it might be his agent, here to deliver the bad news in person, then chastised himself – of course that would never happen. The man would send a muffin basket.

He decided to feel hopeful as he opened the door. Then he saw who stood there. “Oh.”

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Chris said. He was wearing that ridiculous red plaid quilted shirt over a white Henley and jeans and fuck an actual duck, he looked as hot as was humanly possible in the absence of formal wear. 

“Hey,” Zach said, trying to sound more welcoming. 

“Can I come in?”

Zach actually paused, considering whether or not to let him in. And Chris noticed the pause. And Zach noticed Chris noticing the pause. And Zach was a douche. 

He stepped aside and Chris walked tentatively in, standing in the foyer with his hands in his jeans pockets. “Want a beer?” Zach invited.

“It’s 10:00 am.”

“So that’s a no?”

Chris just stared. 

“I was just gonna call you back,” Zach lied.

“Really? I left my last message 22 days ago.”

“So you’re keeping count.” Zach rubbed the back of his neck – a nervous habit he’d been told his father also had – and looked up at Chris from under furrowed brows.

“Yeah, Quinto, when my friends ignore me and appear to fall off the edge of the planet, I tend to notice.”

“I’m sorry – I’ve been busy, OK?”

“That’s what you’re going with?”

Chris looked so sad and hurt – Zach had, indeed, been a total shit and had ignored all of Chris’s attempts to contact him after their night together, even going so far as to cancel plans with Cho because he thought Chris might be there. The guilt had been terrible, but no more terrible than the alternatives, which included admitting he had feelings for his very straight friend, trying to see if voodoo might work, or moving to Antarctica. 

Zach wanted nothing more than for the earth to open up and swallow him whole so that he would not have to deal with this. His silence lingered. Too long.

“Forget it, man. I don’t know why I came here – it’s clear how you feel anyway.” Chris headed for the door, Zach following him.

“Wait, stop. What’s clear?” 

Chris stopped short of the door, though his hand was on the knob, his fingers grasping it. “You know, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out what I did to make you hate me, and I think I get it now. By like, asking you to have sex with me, I somehow broke what we had. I didn’t mean to… I was naïve to think it could mean something more, but clearly it didn't mean anything to you, because it made you want to get away from me.”

 _Something more?_ What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Hold up a minute.”

But Chris wasn’t hearing him. “I’m sorry if I made assumptions, man, it was really stupid.” He turned around and leaned back against the door, though his hand was still on the knob. “My mom says I equate sex with love and I know it’s wrong and I really tried not to this time, but there you go.” He took a deep breath and blew it out through his lips, which quivered slightly with the force of it. “I shouldn't have asked you to do it – it killed our friendship and for that I am sorry. Just don’t hate me forever, OK? Because I don’t think I can take it. Wait – why are you laughing?” 

Zach pressed his lips together. “Because if I don’t, then I’d be crying. What do you mean you were too naïve to think it could mean something more?”

“I used words of two syllables or less.”

“Don’t come here and imply you have feelings for me and then act like an asshole.”

“I can’t help it, you confuse me.”

“ _I_ confuse _you_?” Zach took a deep breath and counted to ten. Twice. “What do you find so confusing?”

“That I have feelings for you. Romantical feelings.”

“That’s not on me, Chris, in case you didn't realize. If you’re having a big gay freakout, it is most decidedly not on me.”

“This is not about me freaking out about my sexuality, it’s about falling in love with my best friend.”

Zach could feel his hands curling into fists at his side and he relaxed them with a conscious effort. “Who happens. To be. A man.”

“A gay man.”

“What the hell’s that got to do with it?”

“It makes it easier on one of us.”

“Which one?”

“Me?”

“You sound unsure.”

“I’m in love with you.”

Zach was going to get whiplash from this conversation. “Stop saying that.”

“I really wish it wasn’t true.” 

The sincerity in the words stung. “Don’t say _that_ ,” Zach said quietly.

“You need to make up your mind, then. What do you not want me to not say?” As soon as the words were out, he looked even more confused, adding, “Or something.”

Zach closed his eyes and considered the question. There was a part of him that had wanted Chris since the day they met all those years ago. At first, he’d just lusted for him, because: well, look at him. Zach had chalked it up to his usual tendency to always want people who were unavailable – and what was more unavailable to him than a straight guy? But then Trek happened and he really got to know Chris, and he found he liked everything about him – his personality, his sense of humor, his penchant for breaking the spines of all his books because he kept rolling them backwards and shoving them in his pants pockets. But he thought he’d successfully relocated any feelings he had into friendship territory, because it was wrong to have these improper thoughts – a disservice to the truth of their friendship. 

Then Chris had to go and ask him to fuck him, and it had messed everything up. 

“I want to believe you, Chris,” he finally said. “I want to believe.”

Chris bit his lip and met Zach’s eyes, and they stared at each other for a long moment. Then Chris was suddenly in Zach’s personal space, with his hands on Zach’s face, and his lips on Zach’s lips.

Chris’s lips were just as soft as they looked, and he knew how to use them. Zach backed up at first, taken aback by Chris’s forcefulness – it was so unlike him to be this aggressive. When Zach opened his mouth to protest, Chris inserted his tongue; before he knew it, Zach was kissing him back.

By the time they parted, they were both out of breath. And then Chris did that thing where he rested his forehead against Zach’s, and that was it. 

“So,” Zach said, taking a shuddering breath.

“So.”

“Am I really your best friend?”

“Shut the fuck up and tell me that you believe me.”

Zach pulled back and took Chris’s hand, leading him back to the bedroom. Sometimes, actions were better than words.

\----

Thank you for your time.

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